M105/m205 Useless?

[2004gts]

I recently bought some m105, m205, fresh wool pads, and new cutting pads for the DA to wetsand fresh paint. Wetsanded from 1k to 2k. Paint had almost zero orange peel due to being sprayed with a flow coat, but had a bit of dust that needed to be sanded out.

The m105 on the rotary/wool wouldn't touch the 2k sanding marks. A complete disappointment. I started on the hood and worked four eight hours on it today. It just wouldn't cut no matter what speed, pressure, or pads.

I tried the m105 with the following
rotary with compounding wool.
Rotary with foam pad
DA with wool pad
DA with Yellow pad
DA with orange pad

Absolutely no luck. Practically half of the 32oz bottle is gone now after all the wiping, re applying, and priming the pads.

I switched over to my usual 3m compound finally after having such minimal luck, and low and behold, the scratches were out of the hood within minutes. I then hit it with another 3m product which finished it off quite nicely, but left just a few swirls. This is when I tried the m205. Same problem. ZERO polishing power. These swirls were so minimal that it wouldn't take much to get them out, but the m205 did absolutely nothing.

Any thoughts? The only thing the m105 did so far is eat through a few of my pads after all of the compounding/polishing I've been trying.

[CCC4me]

Re: M105/m205 Useless?

?????

No, really, I'm perplexed. While I don't find 105 quite as aggressive as I'd like sometimes, it easily removes 2000 grit scratches. Did you shake them? What machine and pad did you use with the 3M stuff?

[Detailing by M]

Re: M105/m205 Useless?

this is just unbelievable. 8 hours my ssa!
If this was true you would have stripped the paint.

Are you a detailer?
Have you done this kind of work before>
Did you not push down?
What kind of paint is this?
Any pics to back up your claims?
Eating through your pads? What are you talking about here? 105 didn't eat through the paint but did eat through the pads.

[davey g-force]

Re: M105/m205 Useless?

I'd have to agree with PWMD (although I wouldn't have put it so bluntly)

[2004gts]

Re: M105/m205 Useless?

I will post pictures tomorrow. I pushed down enough to slow the rotation of the pads slightly, but not enough to generate excess heat. I am not proffesional, but I have been detailing cars with menzerna, pinnacle, and chemical guys products for quite some time.

8 hours is not an exaggeration. This includes the time for color sanding the hood and constantly wiping it after a few passes, moving onto m205, then realizing m105 did nothing, ultimately going back to square one.

Paint is a chemspec clear. 3 coats were sprayed, color sanded out texture, then 2 extremely wet coats were sprayed on. Little to no orange peel, but of course there was some dust/general trash. Paint is now 3-4 days old.

M105 seems to have trashed my pads. The heat buildup in the pad (not the paint though? Slightly confused why very little warmth is transferred over?)

This is my 7th show quality paint job. Needless to say, I have a fair amount of experience in this area for a DIYer. I've honestly never been so disappointed with products.


I am now left with the following products. I decided to toss some of my other products as I left them in a garage during winter which could potentially effect them. Figured its best not to mess around with this. Best way to use these to accomplish the job in a reasonable amount of time?

-3m heavy compound (1000 grit)
-60% 32oz m105
-50% 8oz m205
-Enough menzerna polish for two panels
-3m medium polish
-wool pads for rotary and da
-orange pad
-yellow pad
-red pad

Also,

I'm using a makita rotary/porter cable DA.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: M105/m205 Useless?

We have to say this is extremely strange and, quite frankly, the first time we've ever heard anything like this. Look at all the various detailing forums out there and countless people use M105/M205 as their go to products for almost everything. They're even using M105 on microfiber pads with a DA to remove sanding marks, not just removing light swirls. Heck, there are plenty of people using M205 on microfiber pads and the Rupes 21 or 15 DA as a one step to remove all kinds of defects (not sanding marks, but still). We use the same combo of liquids in our Advanced Paint Care classes and have for years, always with excellent results.

We're not really sure what happened here, to be honest with you, as it's just so totally out of the normal experience with these products.

[2004gts]

Re: M105/m205 Useless?

^ that's exactly why I am so confused. The reputation of these products is quite incredible.

I'm giving it one more go before I just toss these in the trash. I'll wet sand with 2k to start fresh and use the m105 on the rotary/wool. Pads were thoroughly cleaned again last night. So I'll be starting completely fresh.

Just for a general idea. For a two foot area how long should I be working in the product? I've been going slow with multiple passes, but everyone's definition of slow is different.

[STRIFE]

Re: M105/m205 Useless?

Btw...where did you purchase your bottle of M105/205??

[Michael Stoops]

Re: M105/m205 Useless?

^ that's exactly why I am so confused. The reputation of these products is quite incredible.

I'm giving it one more go before I just toss these in the trash. I'll wet sand with 2k to start fresh and use the m105 on the rotary/wool. Pads were thoroughly cleaned again last night. So I'll be starting completely fresh.

Just for a general idea. For a two foot area how long should I be working in the product? I've been going slow with multiple passes, but everyone's definition of slow is different.

Normally the following takes care of things:


An 8" to 10" bead of product, the rotary set at 1500-1800 rpm (paint and defect dependant) and then slow movements over the paint in overlapping passes side to side, up and down, then repeat both directions. That should give you a starting point and let you determine if you need to do both directions an additional time for each pass, if you need to do multiple passes, etc. Usually we find that M105 with a good quality wool pad will leave very little swirl, if any, at all.

When we did the custom boat for Alpine Electronics a few years back all we used to pull the sanding marks was M105. One of our favorite shots from that project is the following, which is nothing more than M105/wool/rotary working on 1500 grit sanding marks:



The full write up on this project is here.

Also, this thread from a recent Advanced Paint Care Class, is pretty typical of what we get using M105/M205. Plenty of pictures here, including work done by guys who have never wet sanded or used a rotary buffer before. There are many more such threads from Advanced Classes here on MOL, all showing the same sort of results. So again, your experience here is just beyond weird - there's no other way to put it!

[2004gts]

Re: M105/m205 Useless?

I'm going to give it another go in a few hours. I'm sanding the whole car right now. 1200 and 1500 are done. Waiting for it to dry to identify problem spots then hitting it with 2000. Updates soon.

[2004gts]

Re: M105/m205 Useless?

Here's a picture of the car now after being washed before compounding. 2000 grit all around. Was washed between each grit. Once it finishes drying off a bit I'll get on it with the buffer.

2000 wet




2000 partially dry

[2004gts]

Re: M105/m205 Useless?

Here's the roof after about 40 passes.... If this is acceptable for you, then by all means continue your ways. This product is a thorough disappointment. I tried following up with DA m105 on an orange pad and m205 on an orange pad with absolutely no benefit.

[jarred767]

I will add on to what everyone else had said, just weird. Something is not right either with your pads, pressure, product, or sanding, because that just doesn't make sense.

I usually sand down to 3000 grit just to make compounding easier, and because I don't use a rotary (just 105 and a MF cutting disc with my DA), but with a rotary and wool pad, 105 should take 2000 grit sanding marks out.

My only suggestion is if your sanding with too much pressure maybe???? Kinda clueless aside from that.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: M105/m205 Useless?

Here's the roof after about 40 passes.... If this is acceptable for you, then by all means continue your ways. This product is a thorough disappointment. I tried following up with DA m105 on an orange pad and m205 on an orange pad with absolutely no benefit.

This is truly bizarre. We've never seen this sort of struggle, especially when competing products take care of the situation with no issue. In fact, more often than not we hear tell us that the ONLY thing that would fix the problem is M105. Again, this is one of the most popular products out there for this exact type of work.

[davey g-force]

Re: M105/m205 Useless?

So obviously M105 is not playing well with this particular paint for whatever reason.

However, you mentioned in your first post that some 3M compounds you have work fine. Why not just save yourself time and any further heartache and just use those?